[cctalk] Re: Bendix G-15 Restoration

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Oct 7, 2022, at 7:14 PM, ben via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 2022-10-07 1:09 p.m., paul.kimpel--- via cctalk wrote:
>> We'd all like to see the ALGO compiler, but be forewarned -- it's something 
>> like 14 passes on paper tape, with intermediate results punched on paper 
>> tape. I understand it's a bit more convenient to use if you have magnetic 
>> tape drives, but it's still going to be slow -- there's only so much you can 
>> do with 2K words of memory.
> 
> Trying to hide the fact  the drum makes it slow.
> Did any one ever replace the drum with core memory, on the early serial 
> computers?

I don't know about replacement; that would be tricky because the serial nature 
of the memory might well be embedded all over the logic design.

There are some hybrids, though.  One I know of is the Dutch ARMAC (1956).  
That's a machine with drum main memory (3584 34-bit words), but it has two 
32-word core memory units, one is a 32-word general purpose memory, and one 
holds the most recently referenced track of the drum.

This is the machine on which Dijkstrao wrote the first implementation of his 
Shortest Path algorithm, familiar to all networking people.

        paul